More Boys at Smith College (not just squash boys)!

So with apologies to conservative international parents who believe they are sending their daughters to a convent when they send them to Smith College – here is a link to a recent post in the Smith College “unofficial student blog: Smith’D”.

I had to laugh at the post, entitled, “A Guide to Identifying the Origin of the Male in Your Smith College Class”, as the article was absolutely correct in their stereotyping of male students from Amherst College, Hampshire College, and UMASS Amherst that attend Smith classes. My memories of these guys in my classes (as I teach academic classes in addition to coaching the Smith College squash team):

Amherst: one year in my Psychology of Sport class, three guys from the Amherst hockey team registered, and they always sat together. They were actually all bright (they all got “A”s) and a little preppy.

Hampshire: one year “Mickey” from Hampshire, blond-streaked, scruffy hair – he was a professional mountain biker. He ended up dropping the course but I ran into him at the Haymarket a few years later – he had opened his own bike shop and was doing very well.

UMASS: I have had a couple over the years in different classes, but the last two did wear baseball caps – and in fact – both were baseball players (one took my Psychology class and the other my Coaching class). They both did a great job and got “A”s 🙂

If you believe in these stereotypes you can test yourself – watch the trailer above and guess which of the main characters goes to which of the colleges in the Smith College neighborhood – then check out your answers here (fourth paragraph down).

Here is Joe from UMASS just being “one of the girls” in a micro-teaching session during my coaching class (he gets nailed in the head with a b-ball:):